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-------- - -------+
====+====================================+======
| Interview with Flying/DR |
+---------------------+----- - - part I
(c) Copyright by Flying and Cannibal August, 2oo2 a.d.
. . .
Cannibal> Please tell us where your hobbies began
computers?
Flying> Such a standard first question :) I wonder why
Does everyone start interviews with him? :)
Actually, this started quite a long time ago... In the yard
It was 1988 and I was 12 years old, i.e. I studied in the 6th
class. And then one day at school I, returning from
dining room :) noticed a cute one on the notice board
such an announcement. Actually, I was first attracted to
its unusual appearance for those times - it was
printed onprinter. The text said something like
that "if you want to learn how to work with
computer technology (not even with
computers), study computer science, then come
there." I have always been fascinated by exact sciences
(math was my favorite subject) so I
I was excited to go there.
Well, I come to this address, but while I was looking
the right office - I was about 10 minutes late. In short,
I come in, and everything is already assembled there - it’s so big
audience and in it - about 50 high school students and
students! :) There were no people my age
one_! :) And so everyone turns around abruptly and
they look at me :) Well, my knees are so excited
shook, my only desire was to get out
get out of there quickly... So that would be the end of it moe
passion for computers :), yes the teacher invited
me into the audience so that I, like, listen too, since I
interesting. So I stayed there.
We were studying algorithms, algorithmic
languages, flowcharts, etc. The only representative
"computer technology" was programmable
B3-34 calculator from our teacher.I started there
write your first programs. Yes, by the way, you should
note that by the end of the first year of study from
the original 50 people remained... 4 people, in
including me. In the second year the training continued, I
I already felt confident because... knew and could do more
than all the new arrivals. By the end of the 2nd year of study from
all the students left... that's right, I'm the only one :) Then we
I just started individual lessons with my teacher.
I studied programming languages, algorithms, etc.
Sometimes we managed to get out into one of the few
computer classes in our city. There were BCs there
0010 and DVK-2 as a server. There, in BASIC and
focal (the language was in BC) I wrote programs - in
mostly simple games. And I got a Spectrum
much later - only in 1992. He was like almost y
everyone at that time was 48-m, but there was one cool one there
trick - Turbo ROM. If anyone remembers - with changes
tape loader and built-in monitor (without
disassembler, memory dump and registers only). This one
the monitor later helped me a lot to understand c
assembler (although I didn’t use assembler as such back then)
knewknew only command codes without their mnemonics :) )
At first, of course, I played more with toys, and wrote
programs in BASIC. And about six months after
before I got a computer, I wasn’t
tape recorder :) I.e. had to come from school,
borrow a tape recorder from someone, load up a game and
play it until nightfall or until it hangs :) And
I also wrote programs - turn on the computer, enter
program from a piece of paper, add a piece, rewrite
back to the piece of paper, turn off the computer :) Like this
it all began... :)
Cannibal> What do you do/what do you study for?
Flying> I finished studying a long time ago (back in 1998 I received
diploma from our university). Now
I work as a web programmer.
Cannibal> Everyone knows you as a coder from Digital Reality. But no one
doesn’t know what happened (or even happened?) before this command.
Shall we lift the curtain of secrecy?
Flying> Well, if in chronological order, then at first I was
cam by yourself. Played with toys, tried to write cam
toys in BASIC. Then, in 1992, I met
Denis (later Den, X-Chaos and finally
OZazello), and in 1993 Denis introduced me to Artem
(well cArty, of course :) ). It so happened that we
Den'om and I went to university together at PVT, but I
got in, but he didn’t. So emy had to transfer
to the PTP, where Arty, in turn, entered. So we
gathered.
Arty was recording/selling discs with games for
Speccy. By that time I had already studied assembler and
I slowly added effects, trying to write a likeness
demos. That's why Arty suggested that Den'y and I write emy
something like an advertisement that he could write on
disks. Which is what was done. This case needed a name
teams. At that time (November 1994) it was just very
Mortal Kombat is popular, and its logo is a dragon. Well
So, based on this, we took the name Fire Dragon.
The first composition of Fire Dragon was: me (Flying), OZazello
(then just Den) and Arty (then calling himself
Art-Soft). But all this existed in this form
only until the New Year and no more releases from Fire
There was no Dragon. Something interesting happened on New Year's Day
history. On New Year's Eve, our family, as expected
Having celebrated the New Year at the table, I went for a walk.
More precisely, everyone went except me (I don’t remember anymore
why). And when II was planning to go somewhere too
for a walk, suddenly it turned out that the key to the apartment y
I'm not there, i.e. I just found myself locked :) Do
there was nothing to do, I didn’t want to sleep, and out of grief I turned on
Speccy and wrote a demo :) And a few days later we,
got together and decided to rename ourselves something
more interesting than Fire Dragon. As a result, new
The name of our team became: Masters of Memory.
By the way, cool name :) In addition, it has expanded
and composition - we were joined by Sauron (even then
not trying to become a musician :) ) and Suha
(wonderful musician, if anyone else remembers him
music. In my opinion, few people wrote music of his level in
original Sound Tracker). From Masters of Memory
several small demos were released (1995 (this is the one
written on New Year :) ), Comics part 1 (part 2 we
never did :) ), some gifts) and several
game releases. The very first one seemed to be a full disk
version of Tau Ceti III with support for downloading to disk.
By the way, it was there that Terror's first picture appeared,
drawn for us.
And now I come to the most interesting part of my
story - to howin fact, it was formed
Digital Reality. It all started in the spring of 1995. We are in
That's when we started hanging out with Spectrum
public in our computer lab
electronic technical school - they were standing there
Spectrums. And in this camom technical school, in the same group
Terror, Orion and Joe studied. :) Well, with Orion and Joe we
we met quite quickly, but with Terror'om -
later. Actually, it all started because of Terror. Those
who saw his graphics (and I think everyone did :) ) -
will understand that artists of this level are not on the road
lying around and getting such an artist on your team
- great luck. So, a team in our city at that time
time was 2 - us (Masters of Memory) and Black Hawks.
More precisely, there were other teams, but they were somewhat in
aside and didn’t stand out in anything special. And here it’s just like
for selection: and cool coders (Ripper, Orion, Sauron,
Oz, Cyber Strike, me too :) ), and musicians
(Joe, S.U.N.A., Sauron has also already started his career
musician). The only thing missing was the artist. And he was
only one :) Because of the question “which team
we almost recorded Terror" with the Black Hawksa real war broke out, despite the fact that we
They were actually good friends. Case
was further complicated by the fact that camomy Terror was
essentially it doesn't matter - he had good friends in both
teams. Of course, you could just join
Terror in both teams, but he simply wouldn’t have enough
time to draw for both at once
commands
In short, passions have been heating up all summer... Things have already begun
develop into open hostility and we all actually
They understood that this would not lead to anything good.
The denouement came on August 10, 1995. I was sitting
at home, at the computer. Suddenly the doorbell rings. I open it
- Ripper and Orion from the Black Hawks are standing on the threshold.
They say that they came to have a serious conversation
topic. In a nutshell, our conversation boiled down to the fact that we
came to the unanimous opinion that we should continue to live like this
It’s impossible and something needs to be done. Therefore Black Hawks
offer our team to resolve all issues at once
just by uniting as one team! I must say that
This question has been in the air for some time now.
our teams have essentially always been halves
somethingmore. We had a good organizer and
great coders, y Black Hawks are great hackers and
musicians. We constantly collaborated, our projects
were almost always together. So what is it
the unification was natural, but this idea was out loud
it was Ripper and Orion who expressed it. At least I
I heard about it from them, although Arty says,
that I discussed this issue with them in advance. Maybe
I don't know...
We all went to Oz's apartment together, along the way
managed to gather almost all members of both
teams (although this was not surprising - we almost all
lived in one area, and Oz lived on the other side of the city :)
). There, in Oz's apartment, the historic event took place.
meeting at which a decision was unanimously made
about uniting both teams!
There was only one question left - the name. We,
Naturally, they suggested leaving Masters of Memory, but
The Black Hawks disagreed, arguing that c
we might as well take their name :) In short,
something new was needed. That's when it appeared
title Digital Reality. We came up with it together c
Arty: he suggested the word Digital, because... Thencommands c
there was no such word in the title, but in response I suggested
the word Reality because I always liked words c
global significance. "Reality"... Cool :)
That's how Digital Reality was born.
Cannibal> How did it happen that the once productive team
Is Digital Reality out of business now?
Flying> Well, reasons for this macca. First of all, we've all grown up
For many of us, life circumstances have changed and
just interests. For some, Speccy has become simple
uninteresting, someone has completely moved away from computers (for
except for toys), for some Speccy remained, but
interest in him shifted a little to the side, giving way
place for other concerns. I think that if life were
our country would not be what it is
now (I don’t think I need to tell anyone about this) -
at least I would have found a lot more
time for Speccy, and perhaps others too. But
We are no longer students when we can devote everything to Speccy
time between sessions :) I have to do a lot
other things to do so as not to disappear in this life and on Speccy
There simply isn't enough time.
By the way, when we get together, it’s with beer andThe classic Spectrum chips go best
demos, so in our souls Speccy is alive, that's just
There's really only so much we can do for him
simply due to life circumstances.
Cannibal> As far as we know, the only project now by you
supported - Scenergy site. Is it worth expecting
or from software, for example, Scenergy#3?
Flying> In fact, this is a very difficult question. Scenergy web
resource is interesting for us with Arty, so we
We support it and plan its further development.
As for Scenergy #3, there are technical problems
there is no way to make it - we have a ready-made, debugged
system for almost automatic creation
magazine, there is an editor for articles. For example
compilation of Scenergy #2 (I don't mean compilation
shell, and the assembly of the finished magazine) takes on my
the car only takes about 2 seconds. The problem is the materials and
people who would want to help us make it.
After all, we never released Scenergy ourselves, we only
united the efforts of many people, giving them a platform for
expressing your thoughts.
So if there are such people, if there are materials -
then I think there isevery chance for a revival of Scenergy.
Cannibal> I must say that your Sprite Land is
an irreplaceable thing and, by the way, very relevant in our
days. Thanks to you for this invaluable for a soft maker
product!
Flying> Glad to hear that someone still uses it.
By the way, some time ago I transferred the sources
SpriteLand Phoenix from Raww Arse for porting
it to work on non-TR-DOS. Maybe he is after all
will do :)
Cannibal> Quite an intriguing question: is there anything left
in the bins, some undone effects, and so
more old-style effects, now oldschool?
Flying> If there is anything left, then only something very ancient,
year 1994 for example :) The last 3 things that were y
my discs were set to PHAT1.
Cannibal> If I'm not mistaken, your last work ZX was
CC'000 invitation dentro?
Flying> Well, actually it was CC'999 invitation intro :) No,
the last release was Scenergy#2.
Cannibal> Tell us how the process of writing demos from DR happened
- the side that concerns the programming part.
So I heard that you bought as much as the 286th PC specifically for
development of effects algorithms in Pascal,and then
The written algorithm was implemented on Pentagon. This
right?
Flying> Well, the process of writing demos in DR is a whole story :)
Even more - these are 4 stories, one for each deme
:) The first demo - 7th Reality started to be written by everyone
by Digital Reality coders immediately. A sort of hodgepodge
from the effects. By the way, it was originally planned
like megademo (we just didn’t know what trackmo was),
but later, after looking at the demos of the E96 info series, we
We realized that megademo is irrelevant. In addition
the part with columns was not planned at all in the demo, but
was written as an intro to the release of some toy :)
So Kano/MKHG was not so wrong in calling 7th
Reality "a set of tricks." :) We wrote ee on
apartment y OZazello. Computers and
work has begun. How did the parents feel about it?
OZazello I can guess now (it went on
almost a month), but then we didn’t care :) It was,
of course, a lot of fun, especially since y OZazello then
there was an Amiga... Then I had the 286th pussy, bought,
True, not in order to write algorithms, but for
study, but in reality it was really used forrunning algorithms, calculating plates and processing
graphics. In particular, all the liquid diamond that I
I think the best part of 7th Reality was completely
modeled and calculated by me in Pascal. With others
the effects were even more interesting, for example the idea of how
I dreamed about implementing the final scroll... I.e.
I just had a dream with a ready-made algorithm (almost
not the source) and all that remains is to write it :) A
many still do not believe that programmers think at the level
subconscious :)
The biggest problem is assembling the demo. Who is this
I was engaged - he will understand and support me. 7th Reality
collected Den the Ripper. And we are all still
We are surprised how emy managed it... See for yourself:
7th Reality source code was written by at least 5
by different people in 3 (!) different assemblers (TASM,
MASM and ZX-Asm). At the same time, o such a thing as memory under
Of course, no one cared about the bootloader and other little things -
for example greetings generally take up memory from #5B00 to
#FFFF :) And there was only one night to assemble Ripper
- Arty gave emy the disks in the evening, and in the morning, at 8 o’clock already
The train was leaving for St. Petersburg.
...Ripper arrived at the station at 10minutes before departure
trains! Lack of sleep (naturally), but collected and
even a working demo. Thanks to emy we were able
take part in the demo compo at Enlight'96 and take
4th place.
Our second demo, Binary Love, was also written on
apartment y OZazello, but it was no longer his apartment
parents, he filmed it. General atmosphere and process ee
writing can be seen in the hidden part of our
videotapes about Enlight'97. Again - there was a bunch
people, a lot of computers, a lot of fun. But this time
the process was more organized: we already knew that
we want to do it, and the level of code, music and graphics
grew up. In addition, we had access to the Internet, which
allowed us to download a bunch of demos for Amiga and PC and
get a bunch of new ideas. By the way, precisely starting from
Binary Love we have developed a clear scheme of work on
demos - we came up with the effects (mostly
of course, Arty) I simulated the future effect on PC on
pascal (yes, almost all the effects of all our dem y me
available in the form of Pascal sources), debugged
algorithm, then wrote the effect code on Speccy. Graphics
ordered to artists as needed,music
was written at the end of the work, when it was already clear that
as it will be in the demo. Then all this was recorded and assembled
in a heap.
As usual, the interesting thing about camo is putting the demo together.
Unlike Ripper, I'm interested in assembling Binary Love
it took 2 days (not days, but days, because...
work went on day and night). Moreover, a couple of days before
before leaving for Enlight'97 the guys from Progress came to us
- ROM, FUX and MIC. They brought their dema with them (Shit
4 Brainz, in my opinion - the best demo ever
written in Speccy). Everyone watched it on the same day
- except me :) Arty forbade me to watch it, saying,
that if I see her now, then Binary Love will definitely not
I'll collect it. Actually, I agree with him - having seen SčB I would
I definitely quit collecting Binary Love :) But I haven’t seen it,
and therefore the assembly of Binary Love proceeded as usual. However
by the time it was time to go to St. Petersburg, dema was not
ready - the second part was only half assembled.
It was decided to take the disks with us and finish the assembly in
St. Petersburg, fortunately we arrived in this city the day before
Enlight'97 started. This was originally planned
at home y John Stunner/VB, but his Speccy burned down, and ours,which we brought with us, did not want
connect to his TV. As a result, Arty has already
in the evening I agreed with Mitchell/Virt Group that he
will provide us with a place and a computer to build the demo.
We arrived at his place closer to night. I really wanted to
sleep (two days of almost continuous assembly gave o
know), but the dema was above all, so I sat down
for the assembly :) However, the computer that I
provided turned out to be Scorpion, connected hastily
to the TV, and for some reason it was connected only
red channel (i.e. neither green nor blue component
there were no flowers). Which was, to put it mildly, not very good
ok, considering I had to fix part c
multicolor'om :) In addition to this, the entire assembly system,
which was made by me, was designed for my
Pentagon 512 and simply did not work on Scorpion.
The picture was completed by a swinging stool on which I
sat, trying to simultaneously collect the demo and not fall asleep
:) But no obstacles will hold back the Spectrum
coder from putting together a demo at the party, so
around 3 o'clock in the morning the demo was assembled and the first ee
the spectators were the guys from VirtGroup, which are in the neighboring
room they were gathering their demo (by the way, they seem to
not collected). Their reaction was: "Well, first place is yours,
“We’ll see there,” after which I could, with a clear conscience,
finally get some sleep :)
...And during the demo compo, our demo was distracted by
the second part due to a broken disk where it was copied
organizers before the show.. It's a shame, damn it :( And the first
the place went not to us, but to Progress, about which I, however,
I don’t regret it at all, because, as I already said, I think
Shit 4 Brainz the best demo ever
appeared on Speccy.
The process of creating our third demo - Forever was under
become the deme itself. It all started when Arty decided
make a demo in which the main place would be occupied
plot, and effects as such would not play a role in it
any noticeable role. True, original
description of the plot of Forever is larger in scope
looked like some movie script :) but we
everyone agreed that creating such a demo would be
great, because before this there were similar dems on Speccy
it seems there weren’t (at least for us nothing about them
unknown). Besides, I was just typingpopularity of chunks technology and it is quite successful
suited our idea.
There was a lot of work. Given the experience of writing two
previous demos, I decided not to just write the necessary
effects, and make your own demo engine that could
used everywhere in the demo code and which provided
I would like all the necessary low-level
functionality, including working with chunks,
working with sprites, mathematics, memory management,
fix with music and much more. Who cares - maybe
see Forever code :) Although camom is actually better
look JAM, there is the same engine in much more
perfect form. In addition to the engine, it was necessary to do
library for packing/playing animations (because
that according to the plot we needed several animations) plus
I, as usual, first wrote and debugged almost everything
effects algorithms in Pascal. While I
worked on the code, OZazello (which worked on
television and was closely involved in 3D graphics)
prepared and converted all necessary
animation. Actually, creating animation as such
there was no problem, the problem was thatmake ee so that after converting ee to
Speccy, the animation didn't look like a bunch of clutter
lots of pixels :) Terror was drawing at the same time
all the necessary graphics and together with Arty and OZazello
I made the final vector "cartoon". For intro and
the first part was composed by Sauron, for the second we
used Joe's song "Nostalgy". It was done
a lot, I have about 15 on my hard drive right now
megabytes of various programs and data that were
prepared for Forever (and that's not counting about 15
Speccy disks that were used for ee
creation and assembly) :) One way or another, but 3 days before
at the beginning of Funtop'98 everything was collected in one place - y
me on the hard drive and disks, and the build process began
demos. As I already said, the process of building a demo is
what cannot be described - it must be experienced :) And the process
Forever's builds couldn't be compared to the builds
Binary Love. Let me just say that Sauron and I were doing
assembly without looking up from the computer for three
days (!). At the same time, we ate and drank, so to speak, “without
separation from production", and we have practically no sleep
succeeded (for example I couldtake a nap only in moments,
when Sauron was doing fix'om to the music of another
effect tied to the demo). Arty composed for us
a detailed plan of what and how should be in the deme:
what effect and how does it transition to the next one, what music
must sound at every moment of time, where and how
graphics, etc. should be located. Thanks to this we
with Sauron'om they could do their job without thinking about
similar questions. Arty called us every few
hours and the question “So how?” I received a response like “We got there.”
up to 27 points" (there were about 50 of them in total).
However, despite our best efforts, by the time
the time has come for our departure to Moscow, we still didn’t have time
Completely assemble and fix the second part of the demo.
There was only one thing left to do - take the discs with you and finish
assembly in Moscow, at the apartment y Mic/PGS. As luck would have it
Mic at that moment was also standing Scorpion (let me remind you, my
the assembly system was strictly tailored for TASM 4.12,
running on a 512kb machine). Arty and OZazello went
on Funtop, and me and Sauron stayed with Mic to finish
demu. After several hours of work the demo was assembled,
but then, according to the law of meanness, the bootloader began to fail.
Demaworked fine if it was launched from STS, but
The bootloader stubbornly reset. We were all already at
limit, I tried different options until loading
demos from a hard-coded disk space - useless...
Meanwhile, Funtop has already started long ago and before the start
demo compo had about an hour left! We're almost there
decided to launch the demo from STS during compo, but then
obviously a miracle happened, because dema suddenly
started up and worked normally (and I didn’t do anything
changed it in the code!) However, there is no time to be surprised by this
was no longer there, because we still had to get to the place
holding Funtop :) Running to the metro,
having driven to the desired station, running up the
escalator, running to the Funtop venue
we (considering the 3 days of assembling the demo) just came running
"no", but the main thing is that the disk with the working demo was y
us! By the time we arrive before the start of the demo compo
left... 10 minutes :) But be that as it may - we
made it in time, and Forever worked successfully during the demo
compo. You all know the results, we lost
Refresh, but it's not that important. And the important thing is that
Forever is without a doubt the mostbig and the most
the best dem we've ever created.
Our last one is JAM (except for CC'999
invitation dentro, which Arty and I played as a couple
weeks using Diver/4D and Visual/XTM). Ee spelling
was exactly the opposite of the writing of the previous dems -
terrible stress in the process of creation and practically
painless assembly process. In order to understand
what was the ctpeccoboctb situation - necessary
describe the general state of affairs at that point in time.
First of all, fun student money by then
were already over and we were all working, which took away from us
a lot of time. Secondly, it was almost coming to an end
Scenergy's two-year creation process for release
which needed to be completed:
- magazine shell;
- journal creation/assembly system (on PC);
- Forever final release;
- new version of Spriteland;
- and articles, of course.
It’s not hard to imagine that this also required a ton of
time and effort. And thirdly, Arty and I a month before
this was done by CC'999 invitation dentro, to which
a significant part of our reserves for effects and
ideas. BesidesArty was involved in organizational
questions on CC'999 and had to leave for a few
days before the start of the party, which meant that the assembly process
will pass without him. But one way or another, by the beginning of July we
resolved most of the issues related to Scenergy
(although I was busy finishing it all the time until
wrote JAM) and we were finally able to focus on
creating a demo for CC'999.
Flying> We had no problems with the theme for the new demo. It was
It's obvious that we've finally matured enough to
to realize the idea that has tormented us since watching
(so in 1995 :) ) demos State Of The Art by
Spaceballs (on Amiga). That is in other words do
finally on Speccy "dancing people". For this we
two things were needed: a camera for filming and a library for
compression/playback of animations. Because OZazello,
as I already said, he works on television, then c
There were no problems with the camera or filming. Object
There was also filming - of course, Arty. Shooting process
took place in the apartment we rented for work.
Arty turned on goa trance and danced everything to it
necessary, and OZazello filmed it and then
dropped inmpeg. There's only one little thing left to do -
process the resulting video in After Effects in order to
to get the silhouette of Arty, which will then be
used in demo. And this little thing became for us
biggest problem. The fact is that OZazello
filming did not take into account one seemingly insignificant
moment - he shot Arty in a BLUE jacket against a BLUE background
walls! And although there was a difference in shades of blue to the eye -
After Effects did not agree to differentiate
Arty jacket against the wall. Of course it would be possible
to go through all this, but, as luck would have it, the only
video reset board available to us at work y OZazello
broke down the very next day :) Considering that before
CC'999 had less than 2 weeks left at this point -
the situation was terrifying. And then OZazello accepts
a truly heroic decision - to cut out all forces
manually (!!!) Just so you can estimate the dimensions
works I will say that JAM contains 682 (six hundred
eighty-two) frames of animation! And for their processing y
OZazello spent almost a week working 5-8 hours a day
(once I replaced it for an hour, then very
I was glad that I wasn't doing thisbusiness :) ).
At first, OZazello used everything to process frames
the same After Effects, but it was terribly slow and
it was hard, and the results left much to be desired. K
Fortunately, he soon found a wonderful program
AutoMasker, which although could not completely
save him from manual work, but still significantly
helped emy and improved the quality of the resulting frames.
If you want to compare, then look carefully at
animations in the intro - the first 2 were made in After Effects, a
the rest are in AutoMasker. The difference in quality is simple
obvious.
In the meantime, I didn’t waste any time either. Besides
the tasks described above related to the preparation
the long-awaited release of Scenergy#1 (and to make it was
necessary because everyone is already tired of it
long-term construction and Arty said: "If Scenergy#1 is not on
CC'999, then it won't exist at all!") I needed
write a library for working with animations. Here to me
Dima Pyankov (aka Hrumer, author) helped a lot
famous Hrum and Hrust) - thanks to him
consultations I was able to greatly improve my degree
packing animations while maintaining high speedunpacking them. Subsequently this library c
a detailed description was published in Scenergy#2.
Another problem was that behind all these
tasks as such, the process of writing effects for
demos went very slowly. The fact that it helped me a lot was
that the demo was not written from scratch - I used it in
it has the same demo engine on which they work
Forever and CC'999 invitation dentro (of course he
has undergone significant changes since Forever, but
its essence remains the same). But nevertheless, due to
chronic lack of time it turned out that dema
it will be very short. Partially saved the situation
Diver, who prepared for us, at Arty’s request, several
wonderful works, but still JAM turned out to be the most
our little demo. Although a small dema is better than
ee absence :)
As I already said - the JAM build process went to
the surprise was painless, although I was somewhat
tired because I also had to study and
assembly Scenergy (how happy I was at this because
what the automatic log linker wrote
:) ). This ease was largely due to the fact thatThe demo was built on the moem demo engine, which
ensured painless assembly of various effects
even while they were being written. Moreover, the whole process
fix'a demo with music was implemented regardless of
effects code, i.e. could have done this already
after the cama dema is assembled into a single whole. Yes
that we managed to finish the assembly and fix to the music already
by 10 pm and we were even (for the first time) able to sleep in
the night before leaving for the party :)
... that's roughly how it all happened :) I think
the question implied a slightly shorter answer, but
I am sure that what is written above will be of interest
almost everyone. After all, that's what it is
Camoe is important from what Speccy gives us -
the opportunity to create.
Cannibal> Flying, how do you assess coding potential?
Spectrum scene today? Honestly speaking,
one gets the impression that with the passing into legend
great teams and no one to show anything to
revolutionary new, but at least stick to the old one
bar, because current coders have not yet learned how to properly
way to your craft. But it’s important for me to know yours
opinion.Flying> Well, since the number of people on Speccy is decreasing
(alas, this is a fact), then the overall potential decreases.
However, even now there are a number of very talented people
active on Speccy, and in each of the main
"sectors of activity". The only thing that's possible
things are not so good with talented people right now
organizers, but these people have always been very rare. I
I think that at one time we were terribly lucky that we
was Arty.
As for something revolutionary new, I
I think that even now it is quite possible to create
something Speccy had never seen before. Not
definitely in demomaking, there are other areas
using your strengths and talents. Take at least
hardware or operating systems - here it may well be
something outstanding will appear.
And in general - very often people’s affairs can be
assessed only after some time. After a few
years of those people who are now just going to their
the peaks may well be called “living legends”.
Cannibal> Do you think 4x4 chunks technology is something of yesterday?
day? Many people are simply enraged by this habitual
permissions likeonce from attribute plasmas.
Flying> My opinion on this matter is: chunks, as well
and any other image output technology is
only technology, a tool in the hands of the coder. Being
applied where needed, it will give the best
the result of all possible alternatives. What if
use some technology simply because it is not
you know how to do it differently or because it’s fashionable -
then the result is appropriate. Here you can
draw an analogy with hammering nails with a microscope
- it also seems possible, but in reality it’s not at all necessary, but
this is a more suitable tool. Also here -
you need to use what works best
to implement a specific idea - and everything will be fine
ok. And about the obsolescence of technology... If so
argue that plain screen and multicolor are then
not even yesterday, but the day before yesterday, because
they have existed for almost 20 years, since their birth
Speccy. And yet - the same Stellar Contour
looks very new, although it uses exactly these
"outdated" technologies.
Cannibal> I remember that starting with Enlight'96 people started
scream thatthis is the limit of technological progress
Spectrum. And every time a new shock came - people
came up with new technologies, used unique
algorithms. There were both attribute plasmas and 3-bitplane
screens, now chunks, set the teeth on edge. And everyone
year, it seems to everyone that this is the limit of possibilities. How
do you think when it will come? When the moment comes,
that there really are more or less decent effects already
implemented, but not enough for something new
productivity, and all salvation will be in style
design and music?
Flying> Name the exact date? February 30, 2003. :) On
In fact, this question was asked incorrectly. What
What do you mean by "limit of possibilities"? One and the same
the effect can be realized in different ways using
different algorithms and methods for image output. Due to
this speed of operation and appearance are the same
the effects can vary greatly. Exactly on
this is played by many 4k intro - several effects,
a combination of which with each other with a change
parameters/tables/trajectories/textures/etc. give in
resulting in many different effects.
After all, in factreally different in their own way
there are not so many effects in essence, but here are their implementations
there can be a lot. And this is what gives space
for creativity - a combination of something already known
between themselves and npubhecehue into this combination of some
new elements/ideas.
Take at least an elementary example - bump mapping.
He first appeared in 1997 (in Binary Love, by the way
was one of the first correct implementations of this
effect). Look how many different options there are
found in demos/intras, how different they are
look. But often inside they differ only
in a few bytes :)
There is another source of new ideas, about which
Unfortunately, many people forget or simply don’t think -
old demos. It’s not for nothing that they say that new is
well forgotten old. And in the old demos there is macca
ideas that, by looking at them with fresh eyes, can
get something new. So the possibilities are still far away
not exhausted.
Cannibal> As a “veteran” of coding, tell me: is it possible without using
chunk technology (and low resolution, that is
attributes) implement at least some of what we
seen in the latest demosyears written on the c engine
4x4 chunks. (I’m already sick of this word!).
Flying> You can, of course. Another question is at what speed is it
will it work? :) I already talked about chunks a little
before, but I repeat - it’s not chunks that make me sick
such, but from the fact that they are shoved everywhere, wherever
possible. It's the same as if you start eating alone
chocolate - no matter how delicious it is, it still
Soon you won't be able to look at him. But if time from
time to buy yourself a chocolate - eat it c
pleasure. Same here - applying chunks to
looks very good in place and time - as an example
I can cite Melange from 4D.
And one more point related to this - where are similar
technologies will be applied. There's a big difference
between showing a technically challenging but highly
slow or unsightly looking effect in 4k
intro and demo. After all, demo (and we, me and Arty, are talking about this
they said many times) first of all it should look! A
only then should its components be evaluated - the code,
music, graphics, plot, fix, etc. After all, demo is not
demonstration of the coolness of the encoder (for this there is 4k
intro), artist ormusician (for them there is also
corresponding compo). Demo is first and foremost
a work of art, a combination of efforts
each of the people listed above. And when demo -
this is one big demonstration of "this is who I am"
cool coder, what effect did I create" - you can
watch it once and admire the author's skill
(if you are a cam coder, of course, because for example a musician
this may not impress you at all), maybe take STS,
climb up and see how it all works, but nothing more.
I personally would like to watch this demo for the second time
not interesting because she is only interesting to me c
from a professional point of view, it doesn’t touch the soul.
Cannibal> Brainwave gave us an alternative in the form of multicolor
engine, implementing in it effects previously seen
only in chunks. Do you think multicolor is
a worthy alternative to 4x4?
Flying> I don’t want to repeat the same thing a third time :) No, I
I don’t think so, and here’s why:
1. These effects can only be viewed normally at
machines for which they are designed (Pentagon, perhaps
Scorpion). It turns out that Western Spectrumists
these effects simply will not be seen(at least for
real cars). At the same time chunks work
everywhere, somewhere faster, somewhere slower, but everywhere.
2. Multicolor is practically incompatible with turbocharged ones
cars. This is bad, especially for 3D effects,
implemented in Stellar Contour. There is a clear
conflict of interest - cam effect requires as much as possible
more CPU speed to get more
quality, and the system for displaying the effect on the screen is not
allows you to take advantage of acceleration opportunities
processor even if they are available - after all, at the same time
the effect will work faster, but we won't see it :)
3. This kind of work requires a lot of time
(proportional to the size of the output area) processor
deals not with calculating the effect, but with support
images on the screen are in working order. What,
given the limited processor resources of Speccy -
simply an unaffordable luxury. Of course this part
can also be used to your advantage by
embedding code for calculating the effect into the code,
involved in maintaining multicolor on the screen, but in
In this case, the cost of creating such code mayit is simply beyond the capabilities of an average coder.
Yes, and you will have to completely forget about turbocharging,
because the number of bars in a line changes.
Based on all of the above, I conclude that
this method can be used in demos, but chunks
definitely won't replace it. Chunks have their flaws, but
they are more universal and therefore used much more
more widely.
Cannibal> Perhaps the question I’m asking now is more
degree does not apply to you, because... this is a question about
parts of Arty, but still... A couple of years ago we all
saw and were drawn to your demo versions of various
toys such as Doom, Paradise Lost. And why not
just raw beta versions, a playable demos. In theory,
the kernel has already been developed, part of the work has been done. Well
some new graphics, music and level development and
compilation. Indeed, if the full versions of these
games you would earn a lot of money at that time! Why
After all, the projects were frozen?
Flying> This has already been said a lot, I’ll repeat it again:
- We have never made Doom ourselves :) This is the work of the guys
from HyperSoft, we were just publishers. Yes,
it was done for himalmost everything, but the main one
the coder found a job and emy had no time for writing
games. Now he's married and has a son, so
He definitely won’t finish writing it.
- Paradise Lost broke down due to internal problems in
code. Unfortunately OZazello made a number of serious
mistakes when writing the main code and when it
faced a dilemma - to rewrite everything from scratch or
abandon the project - he abandoned it (besides at that time y
he had problems with the army).
- You didn’t mention Megaball, but for the company...
Megaball lies on my disks, the extent of it
readiness is quite high. But all the time we were
more important matters, but his hands never got around to it.
Cannibal> Are you coding now, or life and work
dominate free creativity?
Flying> If by coding we mean programming like
yes, I do it every day from morning until
evenings :) If we are talking about Speccy, then for now on it
simply no time, too much work. In addition
My keyboard is broken, I sent it to be fixed, I hope
that will be repaired. Yes, and the monitor also needs to be changed,
my ancient black and white "bell"also barely
breathing...
Cannibal> How did it happen that all the groups (except 4D),
members of the Scenergy team are now inactive on ZX - after all
As far as I remember, there were a lot of people there. Not bad
releases were made by Razzlers. However, nothing about them either
I can't hear it.
Flying> The situation is about the same as ours, I’m already aware of it
spoke above. Changes in interests, life problems and
etc. Although they don’t forget Speccy, you may not
doubt.
Cannibal> Creativity of which musical groups
contributed to Flying and inspired nporpammuhr?
Flying> There are two main directions that inspired and
inspire me to nporpammuhr. On the one hand this
The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Doors and
other groups of the 60s, 70s from England and the USA. C
on the other hand, these are bands from the 80s and 90s playing heavy
music: Metallica, Paradise Lost, Blind Guardian,
Tiamat and stuff like that.
Cannibal> What assemblers did you use throughout this period?
of being on the Spectrum? I'll try to guess: first
There was probably a Devpac3 package?
Flying> Not really. Devpac 4, still on the tape recorder. :) However,
I wrote comparatively on itnot for long, with the advent of y
My drive switched to Zeus. Then there was one day
when I was programming on TASM 2.0 :) Because on
the next day a disk with TASM 3.0 was brought from St. Petersburg and I
Naturally I switched to it. Since at that time y
I had a Scorpion, I converted it to 25bkb and on it
was written by 7th Reality. Then I got TASM 4.0
(XL-Design version). I wrote in it for quite a long time, in
in particular, Binary Love was written in it.
By the way, at that time I already had TASM 4.12 from RST7,
but then I really didn’t like him. At Enlight'97 I
met RST7 himself, we talked to him about
assemblers, I returned home, tried TASM 4.12
again... and stayed there forever. Of course I
I tried every assembler that I came across
hands, but none of them reach TASM 4.12.
The latest versions of Alasm are really good, I would
probably used it, if I came across such an assembler
in 1997 :) But as far as I know (I could be wrong,
I don’t really follow Alasm’s development), it’s still there
The work with main files has not been redone, but it is in Alasm
completely wrong. That's why I stay with TASM andif I write anything else for Speccy, then it will be
in it.
Cannibal> If my memory serves me right, then Digital Reality c
from the very beginning of its existence was a stage -
access to Amiga, for example. Where in such a dark time
(96-97) you managed to get documentation, software
to these cars, because at that time it was
difficult?
Flying> Actually, none of us had an Amiga back then.
One of our friends had an Amiga, what do we need?
however, it was enough to watch demos and get from
inspiration. We downloaded the demos from the Internet (then y
Internet classes have been opened for us at the university).
Cannibal> Do you plan to implement any new
bells and whistles on the Scenergy site?
Flying> Of course. I think everyone knows that now the Scenergy website is
this is pure html. And in general, we thought of it as
a small page through which we could
distribute Scenergy#2 (by the way, originally domain
the name of the site was http://sng2.nm.ru :) ) What now
Scenergy is much more than planned - it is
just wonderful and naturally we plan
remake it, adding a lot of necessaryfunctionality (especially since our main job is
currently associated with web development).
But, unfortunately, for now this (and everything else)
there is simply no time, although there are already such plans
for a long time.
Cannibal> With the next question I will immerse you in the beautiful
memories: you remember those feelings, desires that
moved you during the “golden” period of 1996? I have
in view of that self-forgetfulness, the frequency of releases and
In general, an individual approach to coding is
did it have a strong impact on your personal life during that period?
Flying> Of course. By the way, I think it’s truly “golden”
there was a period of 97-98, before that we were still too
inexperienced. Yes, these years have had a very strong impact on the whole
my life and not only at that moment - I think they
determined my life in many ways in the future. It was
a wonderful school that taught me how to work,
which allowed me to make many friends, which
gave me a feeling of working in a team, gave me the opportunity
experience incomparable satisfaction when
what I've been doing for so long is finally starting to work,
gave me the opportunity to feel fame and respect,
which we(I think, quite deservedly) they used it. (and
use it! - approx. ed.) Of course, all this is not
it just goes away. And I am grateful to Speccy for all this.
Cannibal> Do you remember your first independent effect on acme?
What was he like?
Flying> Of course I remember :) I wrote it back on GENS 4 on
tape recorder and this was in 1994. It was something
type of attribute "flashing stars" when
a colored diamond appeared at a certain point on the screen
gradually increasing to its maximum size and
changing color from black to white and then vice versa,
fading. Now it all looks very funny and
naive, but then it took me several weeks,
to write it :)
Cannibal> It so happened that strong coders left, and new ones came in
Most of them have not yet grown to the level of “grandfathers”. A
someone is just taking their first steps at a crossroads
programming. What parting words would you like to give?
to such people?
Flying> Even parting words? :) On camom everything is very simple -
work hard and study hard. Then everything will work out.
You can study in different ways, fortunately now there is plenty to learn from
choose (at the time when I started it was more difficult).You can understand someone else's code (that's how I learned).
You can read articles and books on programming.
Moreover, both in Spectrum newspapers and magazines, and
general articles about programming with descriptions
algorithms - after all, algorithms are the same everywhere, they
They do not depend on the platform, only their implementation depends.
It is possible (and even necessary) to learn what they teach at school (as
this doesn't sound trivial). For example, without the basics of the same
geometry and trigonometry understand many algorithms
very difficult (try to calculate the percentage of effects,
using sines and cosines in their work).
And one more thing - learning is always difficult, but in the process
training supported by constant practice and
experience and necessary skills are developed. Not worth it
reject the use of other people's code in your programs
(if it's good code and you know how it works),
but you shouldn’t abuse it either. Even if
it turns out that you have finally “reinvented the wheel”,
then you still purchased an additional one in the process
experience, and that's worth a lot.
Cannibal> How do you feel about _Russian_ demoparties? K
the quality of the organization, the quality of the party work itself,attendance and everything in general in our
long-suffering country?
Flying> I feel good. With large Western parties (such as
the same Assembly) they, of course, cannot be compared, but
there is no need to compare them - they are completely different
level. The quality of the organization of those parties at which
I visited, it was quite satisfactory, provided
that their organization was not carried out by professionals, but
people like us, on a voluntary basis and
often paying for it all out of his own pocket.
Everyone can evaluate the quality of work cam, it’s clear that
there cannot be many masterpieces, but they practically exist
in each collection of works. So Russian parties -
it's great no matter what. The same Assembly in
in recent years it has been a successful commercial
the enterprise is more attractive
near-computer youth than real
representatives of the scene. And our Russian parties (like,
however, many Western parties of the same level)
They are good at least because they are “for their own people”, i.e. it's not
show for the wide macc, a chance to get together and
communicate with people with similar interests. And precisely inThis is their main advantage.
Cannibal>Flying! The question is quite intriguing and frank: you
I didn’t think about posting at least part of my
ASMO source codes for beginners to study?
Will share old developments, because now they are already like
would be morally obsolete, but the internal content
may be of interest to coders. So to speak, "food" for
spiritual development of the scene? ;)
Flying> Thought. And I not only thought, but also did :) Look at mine
articles in Scenergy, almost all of them are detailed descriptions
my sources placed in applications. Moreover
many of them are ready-to-use modules - take them and
use it. Moreover, in addition to this, I gave
Phonenix/Raww Ass sources SpriteLand, a
Faster/TNL/PHT - Forever and JAM sources. In general y
I have the complete sources of almost all of my
projects starting with Binary Love. And I don't mind
to share them with others. By the way, I'll allow myself
I don’t agree with the definition of “morally outdated” :)
As an example, I will cite my articles in Scenergy#2
"Memory Management Library", "ZXA library" and
"Synchronization with music in demos" in Scenergy#1. II'm almost sure that few people nowadays
has similar things in his work (I mean
how the code is organized, not the cam code itself).
Look cam: Memory Management Library allows
exercise full control over memory allocation
in the program without adding _a line_ of code! Knew
would you like to know what headache it saved me from?
writing Scenergy and JAM! Ee complete sources (and
in the version not only for TASM 4.12, but also for ALASM 4.2 and
above) were published 2 years ago. Do you think ee
does anyone use it? I doubt it...
Now regarding the method of synchronization with
music described by me back in Scenergy#1 (i.e. more than 3
years ago). This method allows you to completely separate
the process of synchronizing effects with music from everything
the rest of the code, the flexibility achieved with this
completely incomparable with other methods (I have seen them
a lot, you can believe me). Really Arty and Sauron
were working on fix'om CC'999 invitation dentro and JAM already
after they have been completely assembled, and this
happened practically without my participation. But the problem
with this method is that it is implementedabsolutely
a different principle of organizing the work of the code than the one
which is usually used in demos. And because of this
This method turns out to be inapplicable to other people.
What will happen if I give the people the source code, for example,
Scenergy, where the ENTIRE interface (more than 8 kilobytes of data)
Is Scenergy setup set on pure macros? :)
Do you think someone will deal with this? So
the problem is not giving the sources to people,
the problem is whether they need them...
Cannibal> Perhaps I expressed myself poorly. Well, excuse me
newcomer! :) Okay, let's continue. What do you think the scene
ungrateful? I think so. Look, Rst7 was - SUCH
done. Who now admires his past works.
The man faded away, the legend did not work out. Or James
Hutchby, Jordan/Exodus. The scene somehow lives for one day.
Perhaps I'm deeply mistaken?..
Flying> People in general are mostly ungrateful. I say
not about each person individually, but about maccy
people. And this impression is created simply because
that people are different and what one perceives well,
another may perceive it poorly or not at all
perceive. Remember how many timesvarious people
declared something like: “That’s it, I’m leaving! I’m sick of it, I
I do for you, but you just scold." This
occurs precisely because of the different attitudes of different
people to the same thing. And if gratitude
people are often inaudible (although it is there), then your
Many people express their displeasure publicly, hence
and such an impression. But if, for example, we carry out
same CAFe similar survey: whose work and deeds
for Speccy you admire who you respect - I think the one
RST7 will definitely be on the list, and not by a long shot
last place.
Cannibal> Say: if only Arty would resume the magazine now
Scenergy - people would start to join in and do
developments - one could count on completion
process? After all, Random has tarnished its reputation, Raver
left your ranks. And wouldn’t you be too lazy?
Flying> I already talked about this above. Technically no problem
no, we have an automated system for
creating a magazine. So I think it's quite possible
subject to the availability of material and people,
interested in creating a magazine.
Cannibal> They say when a person studies otherslanguages
programming on PC, Spectrum ACM is forgotten.
This is true?
Flying> No :) I can say this absolutely precisely, because
cam I am in exactly this situation.
Cannibal> In secret: is there any idea to work on a joint
release on Amiga or PC? Your artists and musicians
have long since firmly established themselves there, reaching high
results. Demomaking on large machines - how
about this?
Flying> As for me, I am against this. In order to
you need to do demomaking on large machines
start all over again, but there’s simply no way to do that
time. In addition, there is another factor: I
a strong prejudice against the PC as a stage machine,
i.e. I won’t write demos specifically on PC. Amiga-
another thing, but I don’t have any, and what to do there
demos - you need to study them closely for quite a long time
time, which again does not exist. The only possible
at this time the option is a demo on Flash, since it
close to what we are currently doing in the main
time.
Cannibal> Nowadays there is a lot of talk about how a computer
such, with a fanatical approach to it, takes
collocalamount of time, taking everything
other joys of life. Are you able to combine
computer with personal life and how you feel about
computer fanaticism?
Flying> Any fanaticism is bad, not just computer fanaticism. But
when your work and hobbies are connected
computer - you really spend a lot on it
time :) Fortunately, there are a lot of interesting things around,
what you should pay attention to, so the computer,
although it sucks in like a drug (up to
breakage in its absence :) ), but still with reasonable
approach does not completely consume your life.
Cannibal> To sum up our conversation today, your last
word:
Flying> Just like in court: “Stand up, accused!” :) Speccy's
this year celebrates its twentieth anniversary, very big
computer age. We can all do this,
so that he continues to live, so let's do it all
together! And it doesn't matter what exactly you do if you
do this for Speccy and for the people who care about it too
as much as you care.
- - -----------------------------------------------------------
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